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^ ]T r if IT i Iff * *\ ¦H- U -I'4' U*.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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^ ]T R If It I Iff * *\ ¦H- U -I'4' U*.
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THE WISH . { From the German of Schiller . } Ah . ! what bliss -were mine , what rapture , could I leave this vale of sighs , Where around the marshy lowland chilling mists for ever rise ; Sunny hills I see beyond them , ever fair and ever green ; "Would that eagle wings could bear me o ' er the gulf that lies between ! From afar I hear soft music , sweeter than all earthly song ; From , afar ambrosial odours float the loaded air along ; Golden fruit in distant thickets gleaming through dark leaves I see , And the flowers that blossom yonder never winter's prey shall be .
Fair must be those flowers that ever in eternal sunlight bloom , Sweet the balmy gale that whispers through the perfumed thickets' gloom ; But , alas ! I cannot reach them , for a mighty torrent raves , Hoaring through the vale before me , fierce with ever-restless waves . One boat on it wildly tosses , but the boatman faints for fear ; Courage , man ! thy sail is filling , wherefore stayest thou faltering here ? Trust in Heaven , trust and fear not—Heaven hates the coward hand ; "Wondrous love alone can bear thee safely to that wondrous land ! F . C .
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SKETCHES FROM LIFE . V . — THE CONVERT . By Harriet Martineau . There were no prettier or pleasanter girls to meet at parties , and dance with at balls , than the Warrens . There were three of them;—the eldest of a languid style of beauty , accompanying a sluggish uninformed intellect , amiable temper , and manners dutiful at home and courteous abroad .
Miss Warren could laugh , —even through a whole evening ; but it must be at other people ' s ideas , —not her own . Jane was less handsome ; but her rosy , animated face was a very pleasant one ; and , though not very clever , and far from well-informed , she was sprightly and eager enough to be the most interesting of the three . The third , Lucy , had fine eyes , was a good dancer , and fond of visiting ; and that was all . Little Harriet was too young , as yet , to be noticed . When she came home for the holidays , ladies observed in a morning call that she was grown , and thought no more about
her . Mr . Warren ought to have been a rich man ; for his practice as a solicitor had been large , and of long standing . He was now sixty ; he was a magistrate , and in his station altogether one of the first men in the town in which he had passed his whole life . He had a good county connection : he gave three or four dinners a year to his county friends ; and his daughters were welcome at county balls . His wife was an invalid , and went no where . Her ideas , which were those of a preceding century , expanded into placid prejudices at home , where they were a perpetual amusement to her husband ,
and to her sons when they paid her a visit , which was not often . While they were at their rubber in the evenings , she entertained them with her views of the naughtiness of the Americans in presuming to set themselves up against the Mother country , and her tender hopes that they would rejDent at last . She had heard that they were about to divide their country into four parts , to be governed by four kings ; and she trusted they would yet remember that there was a king at home , who would forget the past , and receive them again , on being entreated ; and that would be much better than setting up four new kings . She had no fear in the world but that the Catholics would , some day , after all , blow up the King and the Parliament ; and she , who never gave money to low beggars , was always ready with her silver , on the 5 th of
November , for the Guy and his comrades . She had a plan for the payment of the National Debt , by a weekly penny subscription from house to house . If her house paid 14 d . per week she was sure it might soon be done : and she earnestly entreated her sons to take the matter in hand , and get it done . It was very odd that they would not . She was sure they would not laugh , if they would once think seriously about it ; and she could tell them that to pay such taxes as they would soon have to pay was a very serious thing . All expenses were now a serious thing to Mr . Warren . He must keep up appearances , and his mode of living . His sons had been expensive to him . His daughters' yearly allowance was reduced to a sum which obliged them to use their needles diligently , to keep up appearances on their part ; and they well knew that they would have no fortunes .
Among the county families visited by the Warrens were some who were Catholics . Mrs . Warren simply commiserated them while they did not come in her way ; but she entertained a stronger feeling when it appeared that her daughter Jane had in consequence become well acquainted with a Catholic priest in the town , and that she would like to have him invited to the house . The mere mention of this brought out such scorn , such expressions of
ing , the mother worked away at the point , till Jane's face grew hot , and , at times , her speech tart , or her manner moody . When the summer came on she carried her work to her own room , or staid there to read : but in a quarter of an hour she was sure to be sent for , and told that she must hear the reading , that she was growing quite illiterate , and that her mother liked being sociable , as a family should be . By degrees , and not slow degrees , she was more from home , —went out by herself , and was absent for hours . She had new friends , and spoke of them too much and too warmly ; and in return , " Jane ' s friends" were talked of , sometimes in her hearing 1 , and often , as she well knew , behind her back , in a way which excited her generous feelings for them , and some very pettish feelings towards those at home .
One day she announced to her parents that she had become a Catholic . Miss Warren raised her head from her work . Lucy bent her head lower over hers . Mr . Warren stirred the fire vehemently , beating the coals as he would have liked to beat the priest . He was astonished at her presumption in setting herself up against all the wise men , and all the learned men who had established Protestantism . Did she think herself wiser than all of them together ? A pretty figure she would cut if she was set to argue matters of doctrine with them . Did not she think so ? Yes , she did , she said . She had nothing to say about doctrines , for she was very ignorant about them .
Her father stared ; and she went on to explain that the time had not come for the doctrine ' s of the Church to be explained to her . She must become a member of the Church before she could begin to learn its doctrines . Mr . Warren had never heard such nonsense in his life . Mrs . Warren gazed over her spectacles , and said , " But , Jane , love , you have always been a member of the Church , you know . We have all gone to church , always : that is , I did , as long as I was well enough . I am sure I would go now , if I could . And yet you talk as if we were Dissenters . "
Jane laughed ; and , being asked why , said the family were certainly Dissenters . Mrs . Warren laid down her spectacles , and assured her daughter that she was never more mistaken : that Dissenters were a low sort of people that met in places called conventicles ; and that , to the best of her belief , no member of her family had ever been in a conventicle in their lives . " Hush ! my dear , " said Mr . Warren : " you don ' t understand . I'll tell you what , Jane , I will have no Catholic talk and nonsense in my house , — mind you that . I v / ill not have my neighbours point to my house to show what I have come to . I who was a Protestant magistrate before any Catholic in England was allowed to take the oaths . Mind what I say . " " Very well , father . "
She did mind what lie said , encouraged thereto by her priest . She made no attempt to teach or convert ; but she took her own way more and more . She sat more in her own room , and was often joined there by a fellowconvert or two . She was much wanted in the hall , after the single knocks at the door , which were frequent between breakfast time and noon . When the rubber was proceeding in the evening she would , perhaps unnecessarily , come to the table to light the little lantern which was to light her to chapel ; and she was then muffled up , as her father observed , like a servant-maid going to a conventicle . More than once , when forgetting the time in conversation with her sisters , she would look at her watch , say "just stop a minute , " drop
on her knees and tell her beads , and , when her lips had done moving , rise and go on where they had stopped . When there was a party at home , she would do what she called her duty , —superintend the tea-making in the study , and then appear in the drawing-room , dressed with conspicuous plainness , and confining her attention to seeing that no elderly person sat in a draught , and that no young one was neglected . It was obviously a piece of dutywork , with no geniality in it . She did not go to the wedding , when the eldest brother was married ; for she could not think of setting foot in a Protestant church ; and her sister consoled her parents by observing that , perhaps , it was very well , as Jane really had nothing to wear that was fit to appear in at a wedding .
The new daughter-in-law happened , curiously enough , to be a Dissenter . But she was of a good family , and was a sensible and agreeable woman , and , especially , not a convert . She was of an old Dissenting family , and that , as they said , " made a great difference . " She was made the depository of tho family annoyance about Jane ; and , if she could not make matters better , she at least did not make them worse , though , as she told them , she was further removed from the Catholic Church than they were . " But , my dear , " said Mrs . Warren , " you don't know how inconvenient
it j s—Jane ' j conversion . In the first place , the hall gets so dirtied . " They all laughed . " Yes , indeed , " she continued , earnestly , " every morning there are some of Jane ' s poor people coming , and I hardly like to cross the hall , for fear of seeing some of them on the mat . And the hall never wag so dirty , even in the depth of winter . The servants do not like it , nor having to answer the door so often . And I am afraid it will do us serious injury with our opposite neighbours . They cannot but observe it . " " I don ' t think I should much mind that , " said tho new daughter , who was expected to say something .
" Indeed , but you would , it' you were of my age , though you are a Dissenter yourself . And then , the seeing her look so unlike her sisters ! I assure you , I had to exert all my authority the last time they were trimming their bonnets to make Jane put on a bow , like her sisters . She cried the whole morning , up in her own room , when I insisted upon it . What do you think of that ?"
personal contempt , that Jane fired up in his defence . When appealed to , her eldest sister said she thought him a very agreeable man ; but he was a Catholic : and Lucy thought him so agreeable a man that it was a pity he was a Catholic . Jane ' s own family ought to have known her well enough to be aware that it would be prudent to drop the subject . Instead of this , the parents spoke ill of Catholics generally , and priests in particular , at almost every meal ; and almost as often as the ladies sat together , sewing and talk-
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We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . — Goethe .
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Dec . 28 , 1850 . ] tR ff C ^ LeatfC V ^ 955
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 28, 1850, page 955, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1863/page/19/
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